Chronic Friends vs StartRunning
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side ā with what reviewers say about each.
Chronic Friends
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Living with a chronic condition can feel lonely and hard to explain. Chronic Friends gives you one warm, private place to record how you really feel, see your own patterns, and connect with people who truly understand ā because they live it too. Chronic Friends is dedicated exclusively to chronic illness. It supports Crohn's disease, ulcerative colitis, IBS, rheumatoid arthritis, fibromyalgia, psoriasis, endometriosis, asthma, COPD, diabetes, chronic fatigue (ME/CFS), migraine, anxiety, depression and many more ā around 50 conditions in total, organized by body system, so you only see the trackers that matter to you. Living with more than one condition? Follow several at once. YOUR DAILY CHECK-IN ⢠One quick journal a day: pain, energy, sleep, food, movement, mood and more ⢠Extra questions adapted to your conditions: joints, skin, eyes, digestion, breathing, pelvic health, mind ⢠A calendar that shows good days and hard days at a glance SEE YOUR OWN PATTERNS ⢠Clear charts of everything you log, over weeks, months or years ⢠My Flare Radar brings your recent entries together in one visual ā a conversation starter for your next appointment, never a diagnosis ⢠Download a PDF health report to share with your doctor ā free for everyone MEDICATION, UNDER CONTROL ⢠Reminders with their own long alarm sound, repeated up to three times until you answer ⢠Mark each dose as taken or skipped, see your adherence, and get a heads-up when supplies run low FLARE MODE ā FOR THE HARD DAYS ⢠One tap turns the app into a calmer, quieter space ⢠Gentle quick-logs, an emergency info card and a flare report you can download ā all free ⢠Breathing and grounding tools (Meditation) and offline games (Entertainment) are part of Premium ⢠When it passes, your notes are saved for your next hard day A COMMUNITY THAT GETS IT ⢠Share experiences and encouragement with people who understand ⢠Kind by design: peer experiences, not medical advice FOOD JOURNAL ⢠Log meals in seconds and scan product barcodes to look them up (Premium) ⢠Build your own private list of foods that sit well with you PREMIUM Chronic Friends is free to use ā including the community, the full journal, medication reminders, connecting Health Sync and every PDF report. Premium unlocks four things: Food Scan, Tools, Meditation and Entertainment. ⢠Monthly $7.99 Ā· 6 months $29.99 Ā· Yearly $49.99 Ā· Lifetime $149.99 (one-time) ⢠30-day free trial on recurring plans Prices may vary by region; the final price is always shown in the store before you buy. YOUR DATA IS YOURS We never sell your data and never use it for advertising. You can export or delete everything at any time. Privacy: https://www.chronicfriends.org/privacy/ Terms: https://www.chronicfriends.org/terms/ IMPORTANT ā PLEASE READ Chronic Friends is a wellness, self-tracking and community tool for adults (18+). It is not a medical device and does not provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Charts, the radar and any AI-generated summaries only visualize and describe the data you enter yourself ā they do not predict, diagnose or detect any disease. Always consult your doctor or a qualified health professional with any questions about your health, and never disregard professional medical advice because of something you saw in the app. In an emergency, call your local emergency services. We don't wait for good days ā we build them.
StartRunning
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From the couch to thirty minutes of continuous running in nine weeks. No experience needed, no gear, and no prior idea of what "interval training" means. StartRunning takes you through 27 workouts, three a week. Each one opens with five minutes of brisk walking and ends with five minutes of cooling down. In between, running and walking alternate ā at first one minute of running, ninety seconds of walking. By week nine you run for half an hour without stopping. WHAT GUIDES YOU ⢠Spoken coaching tells you when to run and when to walk. You never have to look at your phone. ⢠Tones and vibration for every change ā even with music in your ears and the phone in your pocket. ⢠A screen you can read in one second: one huge number, two buttons, nothing else. ⢠GPS records your route and works out distance, pace and kilometre splits. ⢠Your history shows every run with its map; the progress grid shows the whole plan at a glance. THREE LEVELS OF COACHING Voice and tones, vibration only, or nothing at all. Switchable mid-run ā for the day you run with someone and still want to feel the interval change. YOU SET THE PACE All 27 workouts can be started and repeated at any time. Nothing is locked, nothing pushes you. If a week feels too fast, run it again. If you end a workout early, the time you ran still counts ā only the plan doesn't move on. CUSTOM WORKOUTS You set total duration, run interval and walk break; the app works out the rest. For after the plan, or for the day you have something else in mind. WHAT THIS APP DOES NOT DO No ads. No subscription. No sign-up. No account. No tracking, no analytics, nothing shared with anyone. Your data stays on your device. What you export, you export yourself ā as a backup file or as GPX. If you want, the app writes your workouts to Apple Health; that is off by default. Training and all your data work completely offline. Only the map view loads tiles from the network. ACCESSIBILITY Every interval type is signalled by word, icon, colour and vibration pattern ā never by colour alone. The app holds up at triple system text size and respects the reduce-motion setting. WHAT IT COSTS The first 9 workouts are free ā about three weeks of training, with everything included. After that you unlock everything once: all three plans, custom workouts, for good. No subscription, no follow-up costs. Your history stays open either way, unlocked or not.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is device support: StartRunning at 4 against Chronic Friends's 2. On price, update cadence, ads and in-app purchases there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price Ā· Rating Ā· Positive reviews Ā· Number of ratings Ā· Update frequency Ā· Ads Ā· In-app purchases Ā· Monetization Ā· Best chart rank Ā· Devices Ā· Requires iOS
Both are free to download. Chronic Friends sells 4 in-app purchases, starting at $19.99 per month and StartRunning sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
Chronic Friends ships an update every 8 days, StartRunning fortnightly. The most recent releases landed on October 9, 2026 and October 4, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Chronic Friends | StartRunning |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Update frequency | Every 8 days ā better | Fortnightly |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Devices | iPhone, iPod | iPhone, iPad, iPod, Apple Watch ā better |
| Requires iOS | 15.1 | 15.0 ā better |
| Further details ā not scored | ||
| Size | 51 MB | 29 MB |
| Age rating | 17+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Gerard Mir Ferrera | Patrick Engels-Kolodziej |
In-app purchases
Chronic Friends
- Premium Monthly1 Month trial$19.991 Month
- Premium 6 Months1 Month trial$87.996 Months
- Premium Yearly1 Month trial$167.991 Year
- Premium Lifetime$599.99
StartRunning
- StartRunning Lifetime$6.99









